Anna Pickman’s son, Zander, has a severe food allergy that her doctor says could be fatal. “The allergy is so bad he can’t even touch anything containing milk. Just from touching it, he breaks out in hives,” she said.

Families of children with allergies s who need EpiPens have been hit with a 400 percent increase in the product.

Every school year she buys EpiPens for home and for school. This year when she went to CVS to buy them and was told that the medicine would cost $575 for one package of two (the dose is often two shots),

She thought it was $5.75.

Then when she said she needed another and the pharmacist said it would cost her total of $1,100.

Pickman said in past years she has paid $100 and even nothing with a coupon and insurance. This August, her insurance said the cost was not covered because she had not met her deductible.

Heather Bresch – the CEO of Mylan, the company that makes EpiPens – has come under intense fire surrounding the recent 400-percent increase in her company’s allergy injector that is used for peanut, milk and other food allergies, as well as for those allegeric to bee stings.

Mylan’s profits from selling EpiPens hit $1.2 billion in 2015. The drug in EpiPens is actually generic but Bloomberg reports that the epinephrine-delivery system by Mylan represented 40 percent of the company’s operating profits.

Anna Pickman with her son, Zander, says she would have had to pay nearly $1,100 for EpiPens for her sons’ milk allergy.

In response to the backlash, Mylan is offering a generic EpiPen for half the price, or about $300 for a pack of two. It also has said it would increase financial assistance for uninsured patients. But the company has refused to reduce the price, meaning that either insurance or the patient ends up picking up the tab.

Pickman said she found it interesting that Bresch has received an increase in her CEO pay and that company has aggressively marketed the product.

She says there is only word to describe the EpiPen price gouging: greed.

Pickman’s husband, Sarge, will soon travel to Canada and she has done research and found that the product is far less expensive north of the border where drug costs are regulated. She hopes with prescription in hand she can get the much-needed life-saving medication for her son there.

In the meantime, she has a few EpiPens that have not expired and will rely on those until her husband heads to Canada with fingers crossed.